Thursday, May 29, 2008

Imagine that. Signing a quick petition online to reduce the urban sprawl that is hurting the Everglades.

The Everglades is a 5,000 year old geologic and ecological formation that is the home of most of South Florida's wildlife. It also functions as a gigantic filter that cleans up our lakes, rivers, and provides clean water. Have you ever heard of Zephyrhills? Now you know where the water comes from. The Everglades is part of the water system that includes the Okeechobee river where most of the water we drink comes from in South Floria.

Monday, May 26, 2008

I think people's lives can be improved provided they have a camera from which to capture things in time and space. After my car was vandalized and violated, my old Lumix is now in the hands of a street walking degenerate.

I now have put together a small list form which I must choose. If anyone has any opinions please share.

At this rate things will never be the same. I'll be turning 29 in September. The end of my twenties. Sure lots of people say that the 30s are really cool. But who are those people? Don't get me wrong I appreciate change. My head nods when people say "change is good" or "embrace change." I don't have a problem.

The funny thing is that change can occur for several reasons. Humor me while I create this subset of reasons:

time

A decision is made

chance

We're all way too familiar with time so I won't spend any time on that one - with time your fountain soda will get full and your crows feet will get large. There's also chance, which is what happens when it starts raining, you get a flat tire, and whatever you were going to do next is now in the hands of time or an outside force. What I find most interesting is change by making a decision. Here time and chance are completely uninvolved. Like if I quit my job and went on a 6 week walkabout with some friends in South America. That would make for change by decision and would specifically address a behavior not likely once into the 30s or so I'm lead to believe.

So I have no choice but to train myself to welcome the upcoming time frame, it's implications, joys and consequences.

Monday, May 19, 2008

I'm really not sure if this is delicious, gross, or just wrong. I'm not even sure how I found this video but I couldn't resist sharing it. They've taken super rare and expensive kobe beef, maine lobster, and truffle shavings to make what they call the perfect cheese steak sandwich and it goes for $100.

Would you eat this? It sounds interesting but nevermind what it's made out of. What about paying $100 for a cheese steak?

Wow, so it's lunch time, I'm at work, and I wondering about the fact that there are a gazillion web sites out there and they all want you to do something. Sign up here, click here, buy this, join today, etc.

Still not all landing pages are created equal. There are three main goals to every online activity.

Acquisition

Conversion

Retention

So every online marketeer has three task they need to do well on. The first one, acquisition, is the ability to get people to come to your event. It's getting them in the door. It's showing them your campaign for the first time. Your best shot is at launch or during a time frame that is specific to the campaign. You create a plan and hope to get the highest yield out of your acquisition strategy. In other words you want to get the greatest number of impressions possible.

The next challenge is called conversion. It's a percentage. It's a division problem it's the number of people who took the desired action / the total number of impressions. Imagine, you have a safillion amount of users coming to your site. Some close the page right away. Some read a little and close. Others click one level deep and occasionally you get people to do what you wanted. The challenge here is getting the right words, images, and layout to match the type of user you have attracted from your previous acquisition strategy.

The last of the three is called retention. You, as a monetary entity want to retain as many users as possible to keep your campaign going and achieving more conversion. Your ability to retain also shows how much your users trust your campaign, product, or brand. This is a key item in what will propagate your campaign, product, or brand to the next level. It prepares you for your next campaign, product or brand.

So those things said. We have three key goals. What boggles us must be the fact that there is no example of a perfect landing page. If there is, I would like to see it. Proof or no proof. I would be thoroughly impressed if someone could show me a landing page I would have otherwise never had heard of and become converted. Is there a recipe for this type of success?

Everyone, take a look at this insane video of series of pieces created by the artist known as Blu. I can't begin to understand how long something like this would take... I'm jealous of people with this level of passion and commitment.

Monday, May 5, 2008

It's amazing to see how both the trailers for Batman (1989) and the Dark Knight (2008) follow the same storyboard almost to the tee. It's somewhat of a cop out but its also kinda cool. Needless to say I can't wait to see the Dark Knight.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

This post is a tribute to a special friend of mine. I'm at work right now and don't have time to give a full descriptive exposition on my experience with Edgar Gonzalez so instead I will share a few of his own original quotes that were posted on a site communicating a memorial tennis tournament dedicated to him.

In Edgar's words:

You are #1 in every book I've ever written!!!

It would be a good life that I lived if I spent it bragging about my friends.

That's what you gotta learn: science isn't something done in class or in books or with lab coats. Science is a form of inquiry and experiment and notation. It includes kissing and stars and moons so bright they gauge your eyeballs out.

I think all you need in order to play squash, and I mean to play it well, is an ability to smile!

Thank you for being in the world.

Until then keep your feet on the ground while you reach for the stars, Edgar